(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 4/26/2012)

This week I had the pleasure of meeting up with famed New York cabaret songstress Lady Rizo on the eve of the first of two Portland, Ore. shows along her in-progress West Coast tour. We chatted backstage, and I took some photos while she transformed herself into the glamorous creature she was clearly born to be, a sultry, seductive woman whose stage presence, voice, and quick wit rendered me (and the rest of the room) completely speechless for the duration of the evening.

Lady Rizo is stunningly herself onstage, in one of the most authentic ways I have ever experienced. It is a gift possessed by few in this world, so if you have the opportunity to share in it with her, take it! I feel transformed by the spectacle of love, passion, and pure, unbridled talent I witnessed onstage that evening. I mean, who needs drugs with Rizo around?!

Do yourself a favor and get to know her right now. Mark my words: This woman is about to take over the entire world.

Here is our chat.

Hey, pretty lady! Thanks for taking some time to catch up with me before the show. For readers who may not already be familiar with you and your work, how would you describe what you do?

I am a singer, comedienne, chanteuse-y diva who performs in glamorous gowns and lashes. I theatrically explore pop and rock songs, write my own arrangements for them, and perform them in intimate cabaret settings. I have a dirty mind but usually deliver my humor bathed in a vague class that distracts you from the filth. I now also sing my own songs.

I enjoy your dirty mind very much. How is it being back on the West Coast? You’re from around here, correct?

I love the West Coast. Yes, I was raised in an intentionally artistic community by a troupe of theater hippies on the Oregon beach. It always takes me a second to readjust to the slower, relaxed pace here and the fact that waiters will smile at you. But I love it — and I love being a bridge between.

Right. Friendly servers is a real treat that comes with living here for sure. When did you move to New York? Did you move there with a mission, or has all of this come about organically?

I moved to N.Y.C. in 2004. Oh, yes, I had a mission: to continue my work as in the theater. However, when I moved there, I found that I needed to have a different game plan. I was not willing to play the role as a pleading actress, blindly sending out headshots and résumés in hopes that I could get an agent. I knew that bitterness and lack of control over my career would creep in and destroy what spark I had. I thought maybe I could perform in a cabaret setting, producing my own shows and showing my skills under my own terms. Then they would all be begging for me to come join projects. It worked eventually, but it took seven years.

Seven years is a long time to stay focused on a particular vision. I’m really glad you stuck it out! Do you have plans to tour more this year, or are you staying put once you wrap up this coastal adventure you are currently on?

I’ll be in Europe quite a bit this year. All of August I’ll be at the Edinburgh Festival at the Assembly Room. I’m very excited, because it will open me up to a whole world market. Global domination! Also, I’ll be there for Young Jean Lee’s provocative theater piece The Untitled Feminist Show that I was a co-collaborator on last year. It premiered at the Walker Center and then had a sold-out run at Baryshnikov in January.

I can’t wait for you to take over the world! Frankly, the world needs you and your spirit (fingers). Speaking of spirit fingers, you have quite the gay following. Do you consider yourself a queer performer?

Yes. Absolutely!! I don’t often subscribe to heteronormative thought patterns. I surround myself with others who consider themselves queer. I don’t rally against the mainstream as much as just live along side it… and the truth is, Lady Rizo is a decadently healthy temptation for all genders and persuasions.

Truer words have never been spoken. You starred in legendary performance artist Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge in 2008. How was the experience of working with him?

Taylor Mac is an American treasure. The Lily’s Revenge was so bold, smart, inclusive, and enjoyable. Taylor asked me to do the show based on listening to my band rehearsal while he was taking a nap when we were both performing in the Motherlodge Festival in Louisville, Ky. When he said it would be a five-hour play — to build the feeling of community — I laughed with disbelief and said, “Maybe.”

I really never thought it could be as amazing, wildly popular, and moving as it was. There was a palpable feeling in the rehearsals that every one of the 45 collaborators who worked on the N.Y.C. premiere knew they were working on something special. Is it obvious that I love Taylor? He is one the people that you suffer all the crap of New York City to be near.

I love Taylor, too… but I would add that you are also an American treasure, so maybe it takes one to know one. You’ve been the inspiration behind many successful singers coming out of New York recently. How does it feel to be in that role?

I didn’t fully know this. I know that the work inspires many people but not specifically singers. The only thing that constantly pushes me forward is the thought that I artistically free up anyone. It makes me so happy. I know I need other brave souls to do that for me.

Nice. Well, now you fully know. While we are on the subject of singers you’ve inspired, Taylor Mac has been very open about how he feels about a certain pop singer also self-styled “Lady.” What are your thoughts on Gaga? Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or do you wish she would knock it off already?

I applaud those pop artists that commit to a look outside of the box, but Gaga’s music and stage performances don’t excite me. It’s hard to pinpoint what it is about her that makes me yawn, but I don’t think my resistance to her is jealousy or possessiveness about the “Lady” title. (Though let’s get one thing straight: I was a “Lady” when Gaga was a girl.) She doesn’t perform in a way that inspires intimacy or connectedness with the audience — or at least it doesn’t connect to me. You can be a diva and reign on stage, but for adults, you usually have to earn it with respecting them first.

You are very gracious, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Enough about Gaga, though. Who are some of the people who have inspired you over the years?

Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Fran Lebowitz, Aretha Franklin, Marilyn Monroe, Peggy Lee, Lucille Ball, Jeff Buckley, James Brown, Prince, Etta James, Freddie Mercury.

That is a lovely list of names. I can see parts of you in all of them, actually… or them in you. While we are on the subject of lovely things, what’s love like for a supertalent like yourself? Are you singing about anyone special at the moment?

Love is good. My bed is warm. Always.

Warm beds are so important. Talk to me a bit about the new record you are currently touring. Who did you work with on the album?

The record is exciting. It contains a mix of new originals that I’m loving and arrangements of other songs I’ve performed in the last years. The feeling attempts to capture the varied styles I’ve been playing in while remaining true to my vocal signature. It ranges from cabaret stylings to ’60s rock to Klezmer to old-fashioned R&B. I’m working with Yair Evnine, who I’ve collaborated with for many years now as a musician and songwriting collaborator. It’s exciting to push our artistic relationship into the production side. We are recording the bulk of the album at a fantastic, old, carriage-house Brooklyn studio run by Ian Pai and Le Chev, who also work with Fischerspooner and Ssion.

That sounds amazing. Any music videos on the way?

Oh, yes, of course. You can’t survive these days without some solid content for the Interwebs. We have exciting videos in the works.

Yay! I am officially waiting with bated breath. If you could be someone else for a day, who would it be?

[Laughs.] Surely this is a joke question lifted from Teen Beat. I wouldn’t ever want to be anyone else than Lady Rizo.

Good answer. I do read a lot of Teen Beat, so it creeps in every so often. I can’t think of a single person I would like you to be, either… just hundreds of people I wish were more like Lady Rizo! Thanks so much for spending some time tonight, my dear. I should probably let you finish getting glammed up for the show and take my seat front and center. I wish you the best of luck on the rest of your tour and can’t wait to see what the coming months bring your way! Any famous last words for our readers before you take the stage and dazzle us with your sparkle?

Spread your span. Raise your hands. Sing this song of freedom. Thank you for supporting live entertainment.

For more on Lady Rizo, visit LadyRizo.com.

Those of you who live in Portland have probably already caught wind of the media blitz I have, once again, found myself in with regard to my ongoing small group dialogue project between members of the queer community and members of the Mars Hill Church. After this past week’s vandalism and threats (video below) Pastor Tim and I decided to go on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” today and talk about our experience together thusfar. It first aired this morning live at 9:00am and will air once more again this evening at 9:00pm, so tune in!

You can download the MP3 HERE.

If you care to catch up on everything that happened to get us here this week, follow the links and watch the video below:

Q Center’s Executive Director Speaks Out Against Threats of Violence
KGW News (NBC)
Fox 12 News
PQ Monthly (Article 1)
The Christian Post
PQ Monthly (Article 2)
The Oregonian
The Portland Mercury
KOIN 6 (CBS)
Rev. Chuck Currie

I took a job this week as a columnist for Just Out Magazine! Look for my monthly column when they relaunch in June. Fun, right?

From Just Out: (4/10/2012)

“Just Out is pleased to announce that openly gay writer, musician, and LGBT activist Logan Lynn has joined our ever-growing team of columnists! Logan’s articles range from celebrity interviews to mindful living to local, national, and international queer issues. In addition to writing for Just Out, The Huffington Post, Q Blog, and various mainstream and queer media outlets, Lynn has released five studio albums, six EPs and two singles since 1999 (with a new single on the way in June). He has worked closely with The Dandy Warhols and Styrofoam throughout his career and his music videos have appeared on MTV, Logo, Spike TV and VH1. He has also hosted shows and appeared in commercial spots for Logo and MTV on several occasions since 2007. Logan devotes much of his energy these days to working closely with Q Center, Oregon’s LGBTQ community center. He currently lives in Portland, and enjoys spending time with his partner Aleksandr, his teacup Pomeranian Dutch, and his beloved television.”

ha ha ha

I love that last line.

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 4/6/2012)

I don’t do well with death. My coping skills are still lacking around anything related to loss in general, actually — but death, I just… can’t. It’s been this way since I was a boy. The idea that everyone I have ever loved will someday be taken from me (or I from them) terrifies me and is a concept I have largely refused to look at for as long as I can remember. Death, in my personal psychology, as in life, is the final frontier.

This week when I got the call from my broken-hearted mother that her sweet sister, who had fallen ill with a mysterious condition a few months ago, was being moved from hospital to hospice, I was overcome with sorrow. My usually manageable, small, wooden feelings about death and loss were suddenly made large, alive and uncontrollable. What I am most afraid of was here, once again, greeting me head-on in the living room. I turned back into the terrified child version of myself that lives inside me while my mother and I cried on the phone together. During the really hard parts I tried not to hear what she was saying, and instead focused on the sound of my own sobbing. It didn’t work. I took in every painful word.

My brain absorbs news like this in slow motion. It hits me in tearful waves, fades to the background, then jumps out again at the strangest times. I feel a deep connection to this planet by way of my family and the love we all share for each other, and I am sad that some of that love might be moving to another part of the universe. I’m selfish in this way. I want to keep all of you close forever. Anything else just seems too cruel to imagine and, well…This has been my reality for three days now.

A few years ago I was given a book called To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue. I have pulled it out a few times over the years when I can’t find ways of relating to the world, and it has helped me form thoughts around some of the stuff I’m just no good at thinking about. This week was one of those times. In a passage about death from the book, O’Donohue writes:

“From the moment you were born,
Your death has walked beside you.
Though it seldom shows its face,
You still feel its empty touch,
When fear invades your life,
Or what you love is lost
Or inner damage is incurred.

That you would gather yourself
And decide carefully
How you now can live
The life you would love
To look back on
From your deathbed.”

I know my aunt has lived a life she loves to look back on, and I am proud to know her and call her one of my own. I go in and out of feeling like it’s just too hard to love, to be apart of, to care. There is some scared part of me that has always wanted to just get it over with now, push everyone away, be part of nothing, care for no one… But that doesn’t work, either. I’ve tried. Ultimately, the only comfort I can find in someday losing everyone I have ever loved is knowing that the people I love know how much I love them while they are here.

I encourage you to pull your people close and tell them how much they mean to you before the day is through. Love is what matters. The rest is just a distraction from the inevitable.

Follow Logan Lynn on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LoganLynnPDX
For more by Logan Lynn on Huffington Post, click here.
For more on death and dying, click here.
For more on emotional wellness, click here.

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 3/30/2012)

I’m going to Los Angeles this weekend to meet my man’s parents for the first time. I’m really excited to get to know the people who created this extraordinary creature I love so much, and it feels super special to have been invited to accompany him on the journey. So romantical!

At any rate, I figured that because I’m spun out all giddy-like on matters of the heart at the moment, it would be the perfect time for the second round of my ongoing interview series about love and relationships, “Queer Celebrities Need Love, Too.” For this edition I reached out to Imperial Teen‘s Will Schwartz, original Hole drummer Patty Schemel, TV personality Philip Tetro (from MTV Canada’s 1 Girl 5 Gays), transgender comedian Ian Harvie, New York Times bestselling author (and Madonna‘s brother) Christopher G. Ciccone, actor PJ DeBoy, radio talkshow host (and former Playgirl president) Daniel Nardicio, and Sexpop god Mario Diaz. They all weighed in on the same five questions:

1. If you had to sum up the entire history of your love life in one word, what would it be?

2. What’s your favorite on-screen romance of all time? What was it about their love that you liked?

3. Name something that’s a deal breaker for you in relationships.

4. What does a perfect day look like to you? Is it spent alone or with someone else?

5. If you could pick a theme song for that day, what would it be?

Here’s what they had to say about stuff (and things).

Will Schwartz

Will is a founding member of queer alt-rock supergroup Imperial Teen, as well as the brainchild behind indie pop outfit Hey Willpower. (Watch Imperial Teen’s “Runaway” video here.)

1. “Musical.”

2. Gena Rowlands and Peter Falk in A Woman Under the Influence comes to mind (their relationship in the first half of the film, anyway). She’s pretty crazy and inappropriate, but they share a deep and complicated sense of love and understanding of one another for a while. It doesn’t end so great, but it’s a powerful unconditional love message until things really go awry. I like Dudley and Liza in Arthur, also. I like that they’re goofballs and everything is absurd and funny to them, and they have their flaws but they accept one another. I mean it’s a bit cartoonish and codependent, but what isn’t?

3. No drive, terrible breath.

4. Oh, so many ways. Spent with someone else! Having had some really good news the night before (i.e., a song licensed, a Grammy nod), sleep in a beautiful luxury hotel with a best buddy, take a bath, eat a delicious breakfast, lay out by the pool and read trashy magazines, do a little exercise and some spa time, take a nap, get up and watch a little TV, go to an incredible restaurant for dinner, come back and watch a good movie. Or a similar day at a friend’s house in Joshua Tree or Valley Center, eating great food, hanging out with irreverent grandmas and dogs, cracking up all day with my pals, and doing home karaoke at night. Or writing and hanging out with Imperial Teen, Roddy cooking us dinner.

5. The Alessi Brothers’ “Seabird”:

Patty Schemel

Patty was the original drummer behind Courtney Love in the band Hole and is the subject of a new documentary titled Hit So Hard: The Life and Near Death Story of Patty Schemel (watch the trailer exclusively on iTunes here).

1. “Lessons.”

2. Beauty & the Beast, Jean Cocteau. His love was pure, and she was eventually able to look past his beastliness, which made him human in the end.

3. Dishonesty or no sense of humor.

4. Spent with my wife and daughter. It doesn’t matter what we do, as long as we are together!

5. Edward Sharp & the Magnetic Zeros’ “Home”:

Philip Tetro

Philip is a panelist on the MTV Canada show 1 girl 5 gays. (Watch him on Logo online here.)

1. “Uneventful.”

2. Juan and Eva Peron (Jonathan Pryce and Madonna) in Evita: the story of a woman who encounters endless heartbreak her entire life until someone finally loves her back. She finds true love while trying to change the world for the better. She searches and searches for love until she finds more than she knows what to do with. Then she dies.

3. Men who aren’t articulate! You don’t have to be a genius, but if you say that you “seen” something as opposed to “saw” something, you will need to leave. Immediately.

4. A perfect day for me happens sometime in July: friends, family, food, music, and dancing. A handsome man by my side would be great, too. And, perhaps, a drink or two. Or three.

5. Madonna’s “Holiday”:

Ian Harvie

Ian is a transgender comedian/activist who has performed his act all over the world and on both mainstream and queer TV. (Watch him do his thing on tour with Margaret Cho here.)

1. You can’t just give me one word! I gotta have two or three for this: “sweet, semi-complicated, passion.”

2. Love Actually. I’m a complete sap for a film with multiple “love” storylines. This film shows love from so many different angles: that of a kid’s first love, love lost, love not reciprocated, love even with a language barrier, forbidden love, awkward new love, and so much more. I like how they’re all tied together in the end. I love the ending at the airport with everyone greeting each other at the gate. I’m a huge sap!

3. Unfair fighting — and this goes for any kind of relationship in my life: lover, friend, family. We can have a beef, but you’d better come at me with some adult fightin’ tools. No serious name calling, stick to the issues, and we’d better fuck after. Well, I guess the fucking doesn’t apply to family; we should just probably hug it out after.

4. Spent with m’ady: wake up to a blow job, go for a walk/mild hike or paddle boarding (which I’ve have yet to do), get a kale salad at the Veggie Grill, meet friend(s) for coffee, cook out at home, watch Chelsea Lately, go to bed. Kind of a simpleton here.

5. The Temper Trap’s “Sweet Disposition”:

Christopher G. Ciccone

Christopher is a New York Times bestselling author, was Madonna‘s artistic director for years, and just happens to be her younger brother.

1. “Spastic.”

2. From the movie Laura: the lead, Dana Andrews, falls in love with the other lead, Gene Tierney. He falls in love with a dead woman based solely on a portrait, her affects, and the stories people tell him about her; then he discovers she is alive! It’s a trip, and it’s brilliant.

3. No sense of humor.

4. A cold, cloudy Sunday, laying around warm in bed with someone I love, ignoring The New York Times, watching old movies, eating pizza, drinking wine…

5. Alicia Keys’ “If I Ain’t Got You”:

PJ DeBoy

You probably remember PJ from his role in John Cameron Mitchell’s masterpiece film Shortbus. He is also a regular on OutTV and the Here network.

1. “Volcanic.”

2. Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude. Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon play such beautiful oddballs who find each other at a desperate point in each other’s lives. There’s this delightful, optimistic doom that draws me to them. We know it’s not going to work out, but in the meantime…

3. I don’t do deal breakers.

4. My perfect day is outside somewhere with Paul (my partner) and as many family and friends as I can gather. There should be a river involved, too. I’m very fortunate to have the people in my life that I do. You all know who you are! Thank you for all the perfect days and the not-so-great ones, too.

5. Massive Attack’s “Protection”:

Daniel Nardicio

Daniel is a New York City nightlife heavyweight, media mogul, TV talking head, and radio personality. He made Sarah Palin totally shit her pants a while back, too… which makes me smile.

1. “Spotty.”

2. They werent actually lovers, but Holly Hunter and Albert Brooks in Broadcast News were best friends with an underlying romance. I just loved their rapport and the way they could finish each others thoughts — very sweet.

3. Lack of humor. Chris and I literally laugh all day long. It gets us through the tough times, realizing the absurdity of it all. I’ve gone out with guys who weren’t funny, and it’s like the worst quality ever.

4. I like being alone. I guess the perfect day would be working doing what i love, then when I’m done achieving, Chris comes home, and we talk about the day.

5. Polyphonic Spree’s “Light and Day”:

Mario Diaz

Mario is an actor, DJ, Los Angeles party promoter, and electro producer. He is currently starring in Hollywood Sex Wars and is the man behind the music over at Dirty Sanchez.

1. I’m gonna go with “abundance.” If I look back at all the love that has been given to me, I’m a damn lucky guy.

2. I was always especially touched by King Kong (wait… that sounded weird). The deep love between Kong and Jessica Lange’s character brought me to tears. There’s something about the tragedy of an unrequited love that’s always moving. I usually play the big trouble-causing ape in my relationships.

3. I can no longer deal with guys who try and fight for power in my relationships. I don’t want to compete with my dates. If I wanted a serious relationship, I would like one where we try to empower each other, one where we would aspire to build the other up, not break them down because of insecurities. I know I’m not the easiest person to date, especially in my line of work. I’m surrounded by talent and sexiness, so it takes a strong individual to be able to handle me. The point is I can be a real pain in the ass, but I’m super lovable… what?

4. The perfect day for me would be brunch with my framily (friends/family), then we’re off to rehearse a new ridiculous show we’re doing. We would then take a thrift store shopping break, but I’d have to ditch them to make my dance class at the Sweat Spot. The day ends with a big fat bowl in bed watching bad TV. Yeah… that’s about right. Love comes in many forms, and each person can give us something different and valid. For me, my friends are more than enough. Anything more is gravy… but I do like gravy a lot.

5. Bill Withers’ “Lovely Day”:

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 3/14/2012)

This past weekend my partner and I went to see a performance of A Lesson Before Dying, Romulus Linney‘s play set in a small Louisiana bayou town in 1948. It was based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Ernest J. Gaines and is about a young black man who has been wrongfully accused, convicted of murder, and awaits his death in the parish courthouse. While in court the convicted man’s life is compared to that of a hog, and this becomes his truth. His godmother enlists the unwilling aid of the town’s young plantation teacher to carry out her mission of teaching her godson to walk to the electric chair like an innocent man rather than the animal the white man has made him out to be throughout his life. Questions of racism and morality are confronted in visits between the two men for the duration of the piece and, in the end, the lessons shared and learned transform them both — along with the entire town.

After the very moving, emotional performance ended, founders of the August Wilson Red Door Project (an organization that “uses the arts as a catalyst for creating lasting, positive change in the racial ecology of Portland”) took the stage for a dialogue about the experience we had just collectively emerged from. Their organization posits that “all people, regardless of personal, cultural, and social history, internalize values and beliefs of the world they have been raised in. While some of these values and beliefs enable creative achievement and success, others create a sense of profound limitation and self-doubt. This doubt can be described as internalized oppression — a process by which people come to accept and internalize the inaccurate myths and stereotypes they have been exposed to.” The idea is that “no one is immune from having to wrestle with a sense that something is holding them back, regardless of background or privilege”, and they founded their organization on the belief that “with the right education, exposure, and support, everyone is capable of growing their capacity to create, to achieve, and to thrive.”

At one point during the very emotional post-performance chat, while illustrating how this particular story speaks to a universal human rights issue and making a correlation between the civil rights movement in the United States and some current world affairs and battles being fought in the name of race and religion in other lands, someone in the audience said the following four words about Americans: “We are past racism.” The room fell silent, aside from a few gasps. I could feel the sting in the air and could see the pain that one sentence had caused in the faces of many others in the room.

Traditional slavery may be over in America, but most of us know that racism is still alive and well in this country and the rest of the world. I agree that oppression is a universal issue that extends beyond race, but to say that we are beyond racism is just simply not accurate. This internalized oppression is its own form of slavery, so in some respects even slavery lives on; it just looks different these days than it used to. This brand of slavery imprisons the mind and poisons the spirit. It keeps us shackled to an idea someone else has about our worth and tells us we are wrong to feel human, that we are not equal, and that we are, in fact, nothing but a hog being fattened up for the kill.

The fight for civil rights continues to this day around race, gender, sexuality, class; many of us are still being told by our country that we are animals, undeserving of the same rights and protections granted to our fellow citizens, and we too often believe them. We accept the limitations put upon us by the world around us, and we perpetuate the dehumanizing messages being drilled into us because, on some level, over time, we have taken them to heart and made them our truth. In the end, we become the stereotype.

My dream is that we can transform; that we are brave enough to identify the inner oppressor and cast him out; that we are able to break free from the prisons we have been placed in by fear and hate and instead, honor who we are as people. We are all human beings with voices that deserve to be heard, and we all have the power to change the world.

Your life is just as valuable as anyone else’s, and you can be free if you choose to be, no matter what your mind is shackled to. No one has the ability to take your humanity from you. They can sure try (and, believe me, they will try), but it is only theirs if you give it to them.

Internalize that!

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 3/8/2012)

Most of the working musicians I know have been paying close attention to the real-life drama unfolding in the file-sharing world lately. That’s not to say all of said working musician friends agree with what I am about to say here, but the majority of them do (whether they will publicly admit it or not). Between the outcry around proposed government anti-piracy initiatives, the recent Megaupload arrests, and multiple file-sharing sites shutting down or drastically (and rapidly) adjusting their policies in the days since, there is a full-blown, game-changing spectacle underway.

The music industry has been ravaged by the digital age, the primary culprit being illegal file sharing on websites with practically zero regulation. The past two decades have been something of a Wild West on ye olde Interwebs. No rules, no accountability. By the time the music industry reacted to what was happening, it was too late.

While performing at and attending the CMJ music conference in New York City in fall 2009, I learned that at that time, 91 percent of all new music was downloaded illegally over the Internet instead of purchased. Since then, things have only gotten worse. Record stores are closing, music rags are shutting down, and the glory days of rock and roll are over… which I actually don’t give even half a shit about. In fact, I’m glad the music industry got destroyed. It was fucked-up anyway, so who cares? Poor (filthy rich) record executives making hundreds of millions of dollars on the backs of artists. Boo-hoo. I’m crying for you. Really. I am.

My beef is not that I feel bad for record labels or the talentless hacks who run them. I think it’s good that the overall priorities in the entertainment industry have been forced to change and that the powers that be have had to reexamine what it means to be of value to their consumer base. What pisses me off is having over 91 percent of my personal intellectual property stolen, often before it even has the chance to be finished and released to the world. As a professional musician, a lot of time, hard work, and money goes into making a record. As an independent musician, that money comes directly out of my own pocket. Being a starving artist honestly isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anymore, people, and getting ripped-off has always sucked.

Even when I was on a major label, I got totally screwed because so much money was put into the recording, printing, PR, and distribution side that trying to recoup from consumer sales based on that 9 percent of people obtaining the album legally was almost impossible. Everyone had the record months before it came out anyway, because of file sharing. The week before it was released, one site that posted download counts on files reported over 18,000 illegal downloads of my record before my lawyer had them take the file down. That alone comes out to $180,000 — for my songs — of which I saw $0. My record deal was a 90/10 split at the time, but guess what 90 percent of $0 is? You guessed it! Still $0.

Think of it this way: if you were a painter and were putting the finishing touches on your pieces for a show, wouldn’t you be upset if someone broke into your studio, took your unfinished paintings, and hung them in their public gallery without your permission? Let’s say you had some finished work hanging for sale in your own space, but every time someone saw something they liked, they removed it from the wall, tucked it under their arm, and left without paying for it? What if 100 people came to your show opening and 91 of them decided to steal one of your paintings off the wall? Then what? Paint faster to keep up with the demand? Really focus in and cater to those remaining nine do-gooders so you can pay your bills and eat? Is it really up to those few people who still believe stealing is wrong to support the entire industry? It surprises me that honest, everyday people who tip servers well and are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a pair of jeans think it’s perfectly fine to steal music — and not just a little music, but tons of it. Something’s off here. Way off.

I know this is the part where all the kids and hipsters start to roll their eyes and say things like, “You just don’t get it, grandpa,” and, “It’s freedom of speech,” but I don’t actually believe that stealing my intellectual property is your constitutional right. Sorry, everybody. I get that you are used to consuming music like it’s chewing gum, but those days are numbered. I’m glad that file sharing companies are getting shut down, and I’m happy that the people who have been stealing from me and my fellow record-makers all these years are going to pay for their crimes (or at least stop doing illegal piracy facilitation business as usual). Organizing a $180,000 heist would get you sent to prison in real life, so what’s the difference?

Next time you hear a song you like, I encourage you to purchase it instead of stealing it. Supporting independent musicians just feels better than robbing us of our livelihood. I promise! Hell, you could even go to your favorite local record store, buy a CD, and look at the cover art for hours. You know, for old times’ sake.

Fingers crossed that your favorite record store is still around…

Hey folks! I was the guest on Out Loud Radio this week chatting about life, love, music, activism, the church, and a whole bunch of other really gay stuff.

Have a listen HERE or download the MP3 of the show HERE.

xo
LL

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 2/22/2012)

As individuals in a marginalized group, we are often all placed together into a single pot by society. In this case, I am referring to the queer pot (but this happens around race, gender, age, religion, class — you name it). All of us, as members of the LGBT community, with all our differences, have this one thing in common: we are the minority. There is something about all of us that is unlike much of the rest of the world, and much of the rest of the world’s reaction to that difference can be painful, isolating, and dangerous.

Frequently, members of the greater community become fixated on our sexuality or gender expression, and they try to lump us together, assign us roles within our designated letter of the acronym, and dehumanize us in the process. One would hope this outer pressure would be enough to bring us together as LGBT people, that we would unite and become stronger in numbers and build a community so organized and powerful that our being a minority no longer mattered. Sadly, this has not been my experience as a man-loving man, nor in my work with gay organizations, nor as an out artist in the entertainment industry.

Being a public figure in the queer community is tough. You have to have pretty thick skin to tolerate the external homophobia that comes at you as a result of increased visibility, but I think I was raised to expect this, so it’s never a big shock when it happens. I know the world wants to see me dead on some level, or at least see me stop being such a “goddamn fag,” so it doesn’t surprise me when that pressure arrives. I recognize it coming a mile away and have learned methods of processing the external hate in such a way that it no longer hurts me. I have not, however, found or been able to develop a way of moving through the crab mentality of my own community without injury.

For those of you who have not heard this saying before, “crab mentality” (also known as “crabs in the barrel,” or “crabs in the bucket”) refers to the metaphor of a pot of live crabs about to be killed. Individually, the crabs could escape from the pot without any trouble, but when they are all in the pot together, they grab at each other in a pointless domination game that prevents any of them from escaping, thus ensuring their collective demise. When related to human behavior in social movements, the term is most commonly used in association with a short-sighted, non-constructive approach instead of a unified, long-term, productive mentality. As an openly gay musician, I have experienced this problem mostly via the gay press. Certainly, I’ve received my fair share of nasty emails and messages from people online and in person over the 10-plus years I’ve been doing this, as well, but there’s a distinctive sting that comes from someone in the queer media pulling me and my people back into the pot, and I believe that action trickles down into our culture and leaks out into our community consciousness from there.

In 2009, just as my record From Pillar to Post for The Dandy Warhols was about to be released, a major LGBT magazine in the U.K. (which shall remain nameless purely out of my not wanting to promote their shitty rag on The Huffington Post) ran a story on me that called me a fat, ugly, “ginger bear,” stating at one point in the article that “Logan Lynn is proof that some music is best listened to with your eyes closed.” I remember standing in the bookstore with my friend, reading it and remarking on how strange the feeling of being made fun of in print was.

I had gotten bad reviews before, but that’s not what this was. This particular gay male writer had actually enjoyed the record; he just didn’t like my fat, ugly, “ginger bear” body, and he proceeded to tell the rest of the queer community of Europe in glossy, major-magazine print that they shouldn’t, either. What was the point of that? What about my face had made this writer be so cruel? I did my best not to internalize this new form of bullying, bought all the copies of the magazine wherever I went the rest of the month to minimize the local damage (something I had seen Carrie Bradshaw do on Sex and the City once), and counted the days until the next issue came out. This experience left me wounded, in spite of my attempts at not internalizing it, and the effects of this writer’s “review” remained with me for years.

I started working with Portland’s LGBT community center in 2010 and have noticed this all-too-familiar crab mentality playing out on the local level here, as well. I fear this may be the nature of queer culture and media these days. Sensationalized “news” pitting community members against the organizations working to help them, reporters all seeking out gossip for sound bites instead of facts for real stories, editors infusing the personal opinions of publishers into their political reporting, papers highlighting advertisers instead of readers to secure funding — the list goes on and on, and more often than not, the keepers of our community voice have their own agendas they are pushing.

These hidden agendas get picked up by the people receiving the message and spread like a virus from there, disguised as the community’s voice, but it’s not actually the community’s voice anymore; it’s just some asshole who wants you to buy what they are selling, some king crab with more influence than you who doesn’t want you to see the big world outside the crab pot. This is why it is so important for us to be the keepers of our own stories, and why LGBT organizations that help to facilitate a more unified community are vital to the ongoing progress of our movement.

If you don’t like how your story is being told, disengage from the ones telling it and find ways to tell it yourself. They are everywhere! If you are an advertiser, get to know the content of the media outlets you support with your marketing dollars. Do you agree with how they are portraying your community? If not, find media outlets that are more in line with your values — or get the word out about your business through partnerships with nonprofits and resource centers doing the work you actually want your dollars to support.

I challenge the local, national, and international queer press to step back and look at the bigger picture. I suggest that you work harder to be journalists instead of just lazily stirring the pot we have been placed in by those who would do us harm. Empowering the LGBT community and our allies rather than being the evil media crab claw that pulls us down to our collective demise will no doubt serve you better in the end. Some of us are actually still paying close attention to what you print, and we can tell the difference between the two.

(Originally published on The Huffington Post on 2/14/2012)

My mom has been taking a Tao Te Ching class recently, and she posted the following quotation from William Martin’s book A Path and a Practice on her Facebook page today, which struck me:

So we become silent. We stop looking for approval. We cease taking offense at the opinions of others. We no longer complicate our thinking or our lives. We do not seek the spotlight but instead become a simple part of all that is. We can be loved or shunned, make a profit or suffer a loss, be honored or disgraced, and never lose the treasure of our being.

OK. Yes. That sounds amazing. But… how?!

We become silent.

How is one ever truly silent? I’m not talking about staying quiet or not using my voice for an extended period of time, but actually finding a completely still place within where there is only me — no sound, nothing. Where has that place gone? Much of the time the noise I battle in my own life is an inner static. I just can’t ever seem to shut up about me, about you, about my boyfriend, about my job, about my dog, about music, about the government, about money, about the queer community, about what total strangers are doing at the store — and this is all happening inside my head all day long, 365 days a year. It’s exhausting, and moreover, it’s loud.

We stop looking for approval.

I have basically spent my entire life up to this point doing this and only this, attempting to accomplish it in a variety of ways over the years, with mixed results. I realized very early on that I was different and that my particular kind of different was not the type that most people around me took kindly to, so I started figuring out ways of getting people to value my existence externally, and I just never stopped doing that. I have looked for approval from my friends, family, God, record labels, men — you name it. I chased a professional dream down a path that has led me to here and now, in this very moment, still seeking your approval, hoping that what I write is good enough for you, that my thoughts are interesting enough, and worrying that you might not think I’m worth anything once you know how desperately I need you to think I am.

We cease taking offense at the opinions of others.

This part truly offends me. I will not legitimize it with words.

We no longer complicate our thinking or our lives.

I spend hours every day over-thinking things. From the small stuff to the big stuff, my inner thought process of choice has always been circular, and it leaves me dizzy and paralyzed much of the time. The stories I create in my head to help explain the unexplainable or more difficult parts of my life cause me to react, and my reaction to the reaction is to try and figure out what caused me to react in the first place. It’s in a loop, and it’s endless.

We do not seek the spotlight but instead become a simple part of all that is.

All my life I have been notoriously attention-seeking, which I’m sure is a direct result of my not feeling worthy as a kid or feeling like I had to act like someone else in order to be liked, but the truth about me is that I am actually very shy. Anyone who knows me in real life already knows this, yet there is something inside me that is constantly pushing me toward the spotlight. My boyfriend recently said to me “It’s like you are always talking out into the world, but then you are shocked when the world talks back,” and I think he’s right. There’s something in me that needs to be seen and valued, but I am just as uncomfortable receiving either now as I ever have been.

We can be loved or shunned, make a profit or suffer a loss, be honored or disgraced, and never lose the treasure of our being.

I struggle with this. I think mostly because I am still trying as a 32-year-old man to get to a place inside where I actually do treasure my own being. That reads sadder than it sounded in my head, but growing up gay in the bigoted Church of Christ didn’t help me develop self-worth as a child, and I spent over 20 years being internally cruel as a result of God’s “plan for my life,” so it understandably takes some time to do… or undo. Whichever it is, I am still working on it.

My mother is very wise (much wiser than she fancies herself), and we have spoken about this many times over the years. She thinks the only way I will come to a place of accepting what is unacceptable is by working to rid myself of this feeling I have of separateness from the rest of the world, something I’ve guarded fiercely over the years as a central means of my own self-protection. She says this process of letting go involves coming face to face with the impermanence of everything; accepting that the world is always changing and that I cannot stop it; sitting with fears, and letting myself truly accept the inevitabilities of my human experience instead of spending all of my energy on trying to fit everything into the story I continue to craft for myself.

This storytelling has no doubt forever been at the root of my misery, feeding lines to my suffering and choking out the realness of my life, my love, my time with all of you, my humanity. What am I still so afraid of? Hasn’t the worst come and gone already, or is there more to come? What would happen if I just decided right now that there is nothing to fear; that no matter what happens to me or the people I love, we will be fine; that everything is perfect and just as it should be, no matter how the story plays out?

I hope I get there sooner than later, and I’ll be sure to let you know when I do. In the meantime, deep breaths…

(Originally published on The Huffington Post on 2/2/2012)

As you probably have heard, the Washington State Senate passed a marriage equality bill Wednesday night, clearing the way for a vote in the House, which looks poised to legalize unions for same-sex couples throughout the state. This means that if I walk out of my house in Portland, Ore. and drive across the I-5 bridge to Vancouver, Wash. (less than five miles away from my front door), I am now considered equal to my heterosexual counterparts and can legally marry the man I love, but once I drive back over that bridge to my house in the state I pay taxes to, I become a second-class citizen once again and cannot.

Well, fuck that, Oregon — and fuck that, America! How can people hate me and my love so much? All my life I have just wanted to be myself. I have wished for others to respect me as a human being in return for respecting them, but instead, I have been made to feel like something less than by my country, by my fellow man and, once again, just moments ago, by my home state.

I smell freedom across the I-5 bridge to Washington, and I want it. I deserve it. I am thrilled for my brothers and sisters in our neighboring state, but being able to see equality now just over the river has added insult to injury. Equality is mine to have as a citizen of this country and is, quite frankly, no one else’s to give. Marriage discrimination, as with any form of discrimination, is truly a cancer on our society. It destroys everything we work so hard to protect, and it weakens us. It strips away our freedom and is just plain un-American.

We are entering into a political vortex this year, with campaigns and agendas flying by every which way. I encourage you to stay focused on equality. Keep fighting to be yourself. Demand respect as a human being, and in return, respect others. Do not let your country make you feel less than any longer, because you are not. You are exactly who you are supposed to be, and don’t let the state of Oregon or any other bigots who “aren’t ready” for marriage equality tell you otherwise.

This is your country, and your love is just as beautiful as anyone else’s love. The end.

We are going to win this. All of us. Any day now…

To get involved in the LGBT community where you live, click here. Change starts with you.

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post – 1/17/2012)

In keeping with the theme of love, family, and relationship from my last post, I reached out to some famous friends to see what their thoughts were on the subject.

Singer/songwriter Matt Alber, filmmaker and photographer Bruce LaBruce, actor and musician Daniela Sea (from Showtime‘s The L Word), TV personality and activist Danny Roberts (from MTV‘s Real World: New Orleans), drag superstar and electrosleeze pioneer Jackie Beat, composer and singer Holcombe Waller, and “Charlie” Swimwear designer Matthew Zink all weighed in on the same five questions:

1. If you could sum up your concept of “relationships” in one word, what would it be?

2. What is your favorite love song of all time?

3. If you could choose any actor to play you in the movie version of your life, who would it be? What about them is you?

4. How has the relationship between your mother and father influenced your ideas about love and relationships?

5. What three qualities do you look for in a partner?

Here come their answers! (Drum roll please…)

Matt Alber

Matt is a singer/songwriter and all-around pop phenom. Dude’s cover of Madonna’s “Take a Bow” from his new record Constant Crows will make you cry. So will his “End of the World” video.

1. I guess it would be “listen.” My first answer was “summer sausage,” but then I realized that is two words.

2. Hands down, it’s gotta be “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, 1) because we have the same birthday, and 2) because I got to sing it with a live band at the Playboy Mansion when I used to make my living as a singer in Los Angeles’ top cover band.

3. Ryan Gosling is my first choice, but mostly because of those sweet, dreamy eyes. Of course, if Jake Gyllenhaal is free, please ask his agent if he would consider the role. You can tell them that the “losing his virginity” scene will be a hell of a lot more comfortable than Brokeback.

4. My parents spent the better part of their young adult lives at war with one another. I’m very close with both of them, and they’d agree with that statement. Their relationship was founded on a lot of hope, but also on a lot of control. I think true love means you speak up lovingly when your lover crosses a personal line, and that every conversation comes back to “I want this to work” more than “I want to be right.”

5. His masculine playfulness, his handsome face I can’t stop staring at, and his chili.

Bruce LaBruce

Over the years, Bruce has been called everything from pornographer to genre genius, but one thing is undeniable: he is authentically himself, and I love that. Watch the trailer for his latest film, L.A. Zombie.

1. “Love,” “love,” and “love.”

2. “Sara Smile” by Hall & Oates.

3. Lindsay Lohan, because she’s ginger like me, a brat with criminal tendencies like me, and I think if she played it a bit more feminine than she usually does, she could nail me. Plus, she needs a good comeback role.

4. My parents will have been married 60 years in February, so I guess I’ve learned about stability and longevity from them.

5. Topness, unrehearsed masculinity, and gentleness.

Daniela Sea

Daniela is a filmmaker, musician, and actor, and is best known for her role as Moira/Max on Showtime’s The L Word.

1. Unique in each incarnation: on Valentine’s Day, “relationship with a lover” comes to mind, of course. But “relationship” is a great word for the interconnectivity of all things. My relationship to the Earth is precious to me, as well as to the animals, to my fellow humans, and to the elements that bring life to the planet. My relationship to my family and to the communities that hold me up gives me joy every day. Each spirit is unique and intertwined; being in relation to all beings in all the universes is a truth that sustains me. This is love.

2. There are some great ones, but I’ll go back to my childhood roots, my mom spinning Joni Mitchell on the record player as I swung in the living room hammock: “A Case of You.” She sings, “Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.” I could be much more avant-garde or punk rock, but honestly, that would most likely take the prize.

3. Would I play me? If not myself, than perhaps Agnes Varda would make the film, and play me and herself? She’s my hero.

4. I learned that love can be unconditional and everlasting, however it shifts shape.

5. For me, a good mix of curiosity about the world, kindness, wildness, and a free-spirited soul. A great mind and heart is right up there, as well.

Danny Roberts

Danny first appeared as himself on MTV’s The Real World and has been an outspoken voice from the LGBT community for over a decade.

1. “Unity.” A relationship is a mutually beneficial arrangement where two people uplift each other, encourage each other, and support each other in every way possible. There’s no one way or best way of going about this.

2. “All Is Full of Love” by Björk.

3. Jude Law: he plays an amazing brooding cynic.

4. Well, I certainly learned from them that it’s give-and-take and that it’s important to compromise and give a person room, but at some point you have to put your foot down and bring them back to center, and it’s always a two-way road. I also learned that two people can work through a tremendous amount of adversity and continue to love each other.

5. Must be down-to-Earth and centered, must love to continue to explore and learn in life and have a natural sense of curiosity, and must have a sense of humor and never take this short life too seriously.

Jackie Beat

Jackie is a star of stage, screen, and sound. Her band Dirty Sanchez might as well have owned the rights to the electroclash movement a few years ago.

1. “Friends.”

2. “How Beautiful You Are” by The Cure.

3. Miss Piggy, for all the obvious reasons.

4. Listen to the song mentioned in the second question and you tell me!

5. Kindness, a sense of humor, and a deep-seated lack of self-esteem.

Matthew Zink

Matthew makes the beautiful people more beautiful through swimwear. Check out his new collection.

1. “Partner.”

2. “I Really Got the Feeling” by Dolly Parton.

3. That is a hard question! Maybe Ryan Gosling… I am such a fan of him as an actor. He’s so talented and carries himself like a gentlemen. (Perhaps a bit too handsome to play me.)

4. My parents showed me that love is patient and you constantly have to work at it, but it’s worth all the hard work.

5. Kindness, intimacy, and passion.

Holcombe Waller

Holcombe has the voice of an angel. Watch his “Hardliners” video.

1. My definition of an amorous relationship in one word would probably be “grace,” both in terms of how it describes elegance and beauty, as well as the sense of mercy and clemency implied. All people should bring beauty and forgiveness into the world around them. In a relationship, this duty is amplified and focused between partners.

2. I have too many favorite love songs to really pick just one, but the first that came to mind is Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” particularly because of the way it portrays a kind of ambivalent masculine love born in fascination with this mysterious otherly female dream character. It’s so fabulous, it’s honorifically gay.

3. Well, of course it would be Meryl Streep. I mean, what about Meryl isn’t me? That’s the question! I would only worry about what Nora Ephron once said about the travails of having been portrayed in film by Meryl Streep: she simply will play you better than you do, and this could be the cause of deep existential anguish for one’s own ego. I should be careful what I wish for.

4. Through thick and thin, my parents are deeply committed to each other till death do they part. I’ve seen them go through things that seem to push the limits of the phrase “for better or for worse,” and I think I’ve internalized that sense of commitment from them. It’s not just applied towards romantic partnership; I feel this way about my closest friends. I don’t want anything but death to get in the way.

5. Given that I’m partnered, let me share the three things I always tell my single friends that they should be looking for in their prospective dates and potential significant others. The first and most important quality in a person in a relationship is that they want to be in the relationship. This seems so basic, but I’ve had terrible problems with this in the past — being with someone (or with people, if they are poly) who profess ambivalence about whether or not they want to be in a relationship — and I’ve seen it a lot in my friends’ romantic trials. My attitude is that if someone is indicating ambivalence, end it. You can’t work through problems if there isn’t a reason to, and relationship ambivalence is a deal breaker. It’s one thing for another person not to know if they should or shouldn’t be in a relationship, but to know that you are ambivalent means the relationship is not good for now. The second quality I recommend is ease. People always say “relationships take work,” but they get confused and think that the relationship itself is the problem you have to work to surmount. What’s that about? The relationship should be the easy joyful wonderful thing that gets pummeled by the real and unavoidable troubles of being alive. Sure, these can make a relationship hard, if someone is going through a rough patch, but if a relationship is like hard sailing on a smooth and beautiful ocean, ditch it and look for a boat that’s easier to be on. Lastly, I highly recommend finding a partner you’re in love with who is also in love with you. I actually think this is more rare than people think, but steps 1 and 2 are a good start.

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post – 1/10/2012)

I spent my 20s in complete solitude. Even when I was in relationship or around friends, I was impossible to reach and might as well have been by myself. It was a decade spent mostly alone, and I think there were many times when I felt like this was just how life was going to play out. I watched as my little brother married his high-school sweetheart, and in the 10 years since, I’ve had the great pleasure of holding their babies as they joined us in the world. Loving these beautiful creatures has in many ways made my own as-of-yet-unrealized dream of building a family an easier pill to swallow — but I have always hoped that some great love would make its way to me, as well.

In October 2010, after spending the better part of two years in single-man lockdown mode recovering from a long-winded, ugly breakup, I went to celebrate my 31st birthday with my dear friend at a local Portland patisserie. We sat and chatted about life for a while, and then I noticed this man walk through the door and sit at a table just to the right of the dessert counter. He was wearing a tight, white, v-neck t-shirt, and I found myself unable to stop staring at him. It may have been his big arms, his dark chest hair, his thick-framed Dita glasses, his pretty face — I’m not sure — but something clicked in that moment.

At one point my friend stepped out to take a call, and I took that as my cue to undress him with my mind and get down to fantasy business. (I’m not a sex maniac, but I had sworn off men and had been celibate for over a year, and my fantasy life had become both really involved and easily accessible during that time). So I imagined us getting freaky on the dessert counter until my friend’s return jolted me back to my sad, clothed, birthday reality. From across the room, I kept hearing my pretend boyfriend laughing this enormous, joyful, shameless laugh with his friend, and I tried not to stare. As we were leaving, I pointed out my exotic find to my friend and said, “I gotta get me one like that,” which, in retrospect, is a bit crass and actually isn’t all that romantic-sounding, but I figure the story’s no good if I don’t just tell it like it happened, and that’s how it happened. It may not have been poetry, but it came from a very real place.

Over the next two months I thought about this mystery man a lot, which was not a common thing for me to do when it came to random people from coffee shops whom I had never spoken to. Often, the thoughts were naked ones, but sometimes they were not. At times I was awake when he was there; other times he would appear in my dreams. What had happened to me there amongst the candy and cakes? I couldn’t figure out if I had been possessed or if I was just really horny from swearing off sex. Maybe I just needed to get manhandled on a dessert counter somewhere. Either way, I hoped I would run into him again and promised myself that I would speak to him if I did.

One afternoon in early December I looked up from my desk at Portland’s Q Center, and there he was, standing in the door of my office, picking up promotional materials for an event he was holding there. He told me his name. I introduced myself but could not stop looking down at my feet. We shook hands. His were soft but strong — like they were in my dream. I’m sure I turned all sorts of red in the face, and I remember being kind of frozen there for a minute. I came off as rude and uninterested, and he went to talk with my colleague across the hall. Once again, I found myself compelled to stare at him, completely drawn in by his presence, his look, his chemicals, but I was somehow rendered unable to speak or be friendly.

When he left I probed my colleagues for details about who this most recent star of my rich fantasy life actually was in the real world. After hearing only good reviews from the handful of people I asked, I decided to attend the event he was hosting. I was determined to push through the shyness and try talking to him again when it was over, and I would try even harder not to come off like a total dick this time. Out of nowhere, at the end of the event, he came up to me and asked if I’d like to grab a coffee with him sometime. (I later found out that my colleague had let him in on my having expressed interest, so the miracle-love-story factor here is a little diminished, but it was a magical moment nonetheless.) I said yes and had him call my phone so that I could save his number.

As he was walking away, I noticed that it had not saved, and I said, “Wait! It didn’t work!” He turned and walked back over to me, still with those sweet eyes, still with that handsome face, and in a fleeting moment of sheer bravery, I let out the words, “How am I supposed to get you into my life if I don’t have your phone number?” My boldness made him smile. I entered the number again manually, saved it, and left the event feeling over the moon. To my surprise, he called me the next day to go to dinner instead of coffee, which we did the following evening. It was one of those nights where everything was easy and real. We talked about our lives, our families, our struggles, our deepest regrets, our hopes, our true selves; it was perfect. He gave me the most passionate kiss as he dropped me off that night, and we have been together ever since.

I’m not sure if our meeting was destiny or chance, as I am not sure I believe in either of those things, but I think I may have experienced what others for centuries have been referring to as “love at first sight” that day in the patisserie. I’m pretty sure I don’t believe in that, but it was like the minute I laid eyes on this man, I just knew he was going to change my life forever — and he has. I like to think that all those dreams and imagined escapades involving him in the months prior to our meeting were ways in which the universe was preparing me for the very real arrival of love and intimacy in my life. I might not have recognized either of them had I not already been turned on and tuned in on some level, and both might have frightened me had I not been practicing a bit on my own in advance of their arrival. It was some sort of cosmic conditioning process, and it left me brave and open enough for this man to occupy a space in my heart that no other man had prior.

Maybe the moral of this in-progress love story is that even the coldest hand can be warmed. I am living proof of this. I wake up every morning to a face on the pillow next to me that I hope I am lucky enough to get to roll over and look at for 100 more years. Something has come alive in me that was asleep before, and I will share that awakening with him forever, however our story builds out from here.

I believe that all of us deserve love and are fully capable of loving, no matter what our experience in and around relationships has been in the past. I continue to work on staying bold and listening to my dreams and fantasies when they are speaking to me. I am convinced that therein lies the roadmap to my bliss. My guess is that your bliss is trying to tell you something too, so pay attention. You never know when that patisserie door will open.

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post – 1/2/2012)

The first 12 years of my career were spent writing songs about loss and longing, so in some way I suppose I owe the fact that you are even reading this on The Huffington Post to my own unhappiness. Historically, I have felt most at home in heartbreak, both in art and in life. It’s largely what I knew growing up, so everything else felt foreign and wrong as an adult. For years, people being kind to me felt painful. I was terrified of anyone actually knowing me. It’s pretty fucked-up — and I still struggle with this. It’s a jagged part of my makeup that I will most likely be working on for the rest of my days.

I first learned about how sad the world can be when I was 7 years old, courtesy of a much older family “friend” who just couldn’t keep his hands off me. I won’t get into the specifics around the abuse suffered, but it was ongoing and horrible and went undetected for many years. The scars from this experience in my formative days have done just that: they formed me. They changed who I was and how I looked at the world, and they altered my sense of self at its core. All of this was complicated by the fact that I also happened to be a gay man born into a fundamentalist Christian home. It was a perfect storm for me to go completely apeshit, which I did.

I began experimenting with drugs and music around the same time, both before my 11th birthday. By 14 I was a full-blown, cigarette-smoking, drug-addicted alcoholic with headphones and a notebook who fancied himself a singer-songwriter. Those same old scars now rooted me on as I built an impenetrable wall of sadness and sound around myself. They gave me words and melodies to purge the feelings that could not be killed chemically, and I began seriously writing and recording music when I was 17. Those first songs would become my debut record, GLEE, which was released in 2000. At the time of its initial release, nobody knew what I was trying to do. I recall a lot of head scratching and people being really uncomfortable with the lyrical content, mostly, so I decided to take a break and focused solely on partying my brains out for the next five years.

In 2006, prompted by more unfortunate heartbreak of the drugged-out variety, I released a self-titled album, Logan Lynn, a mixture of songs from my debut and new material I had been working on. It was surprisingly well received, particularly by the queer community. I opened for The Presets and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult at Folsom Street Fair for over 400,000 people and caught the attention of MTV‘s Logo network, which immediately started playing my videos. This was where things started to change for me. Suddenly I had over 100,000 folks in my online networks, had been nominated for some awards, and was getting a ton of press, for both my music and my party-boy lifestyle.

In 2007 I released the Feed Me to the Wolves E.P. and got signed to The Dandy Warhols-owned and operated Beat the World Records, with a distribution deal through Caroline/EMI. My music career was starting to peak, but my addictions had snowballed. I was freebasing 28 grams of cocaine a week and drinking gallons of vodka around the clock to balance it out. By the time I was admitted to rehab (for the fourth and, fingers crossed, final time) four years ago, I had suffered a partial stroke, had been fired by the Weinstein Company from an in-production reality show after over six months of invasive filming, was fired from the job said reality show was about, and lost my band, my friends, my partner, my dog, my house, and my words and had nothing left — nothing but that record deal and the scars.

So I used them to get myself well. I threw out the record I had been working on before rehab and started from scratch. In 2009 I released From Pillar to Post and did tons of interviews about getting clean as a way of holding myself publicly accountable. It was not the traditional way someone handles their breakout pop-music moment, but I needed to be honest about what was happening with me or I wasn’t going to be able to do it. The strange fame and recognition that came with the commercial success of that record and my suddenly being all over the TV freaked me the fuck out, and I no longer had chemicals to make it better. All I had was the truth, so I put it out there — all of it — not thinking about what it really meant for everyone to know everything about me. As a relatively shy, private person, afraid of being seen or known, this brand of overexposure didn’t set well at the time.

I was feeling pressured by my publicist, label, and collaborators to do more, say more, be more, go more places. I released a single to try to ease some of the professional pressure, but there was no break from the sadness, because now the sadness was fueling a business. I no longer owned myself or my words. I was taken back to that place from years before, feeling owned and ruined and hurt by the world. This was a new kind of heartbreak, however. It was the heartbreak of realizing that the thing that had always made me feel better had now become the very thing that was making me miserable. I did the only thing I knew how to do in that moment: I wrote songs and planned my escape. I was sick of being professionally sad and was just completely done with people relating to me on that level. In June 2010 I announced that I was going on an indefinite hiatus and released two in-progress records, I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday and Blood in the Water, myself, just months apart — no label, no PR campaign, no radio. I fired everyone around me and set off to explore a regular life, which I am pleased to report I found.

In the 18-plus months since, I have thrown myself into working full-time for LGBT rights at Portland’s Q Center. In being around people who truly care about my well-being and about humanity at large, I’ve realized that those scars from my early days are beautiful if you look at them just right. All of the heartbreak from the years is just part of my story, and my story is just getting started. I am not shaped by the experience of abuse and heartache any more than I am shaped by the experience of surviving them, and I am not driven by sadness any more than I am driven by joy — I just needed something joyful to write about.

I’m reminded of a quotation by author Rachel Naomi Remen that my mother sent me with regard to this very thing:

Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to find other people, or to even know they’re alone with an illness. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of.

Love has made a home in my life and songs these days, shining new light on old wounds, bringing with it new words and melodies. I hope love makes a home in your lives, too. We are all so much more than our scars.

Hope everybody is having a great new year so far. We are just 2 days in and I am already announcing exciting stuff! I was recently asked to come on board as a blogger for The Huffington Post and they published my 1st piece today in the Gay Voices section HERE. It’s called “Unhappiness Is A Strange Muse“. Please comment, share and click the “Like” button…and you can subscribe to my future posts on my official HuffPost author page HERE.

Cray Cray, huh?

Whoa! Portland Monthly Magazine picked my record “I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday” as one of their top 15 records to give as gifts this holiday season and had some really nice things to say about me! So cool.

Check it out HERE.

Oh god. Watch my new video on MTV below or on their website HERE.

MTV is so fucking cool still.

As many of you probably already have heard, Seattle’s evangelical Mars Hill church has just set up shop in SE Portland. The story broke via the Portland Mercury last week and ignited a controversy which has been covered in the media (both local and national) ever since.

When anything notable that’s LGBT-related happens in this town I generally expect to get calls from newsrooms wanting official statements from Q Center about said goings-on. That’s part of our role as an organization, actually; to speak out and offer up a voice from the queer community. As Q Center‘s Public Relations Manager, this time-sensitive-race-to-press stuff lands on my desk – generally all at once and without warning. This was certainly the case this past week. At 4pm Thursday Fox News descended upon my office with TV cameras. The Oregonian and Just Out had both interviewed me about the church just before they arrived as well.

Here’s where this whole thing gets tricky:

I know that ultimately what comes out of my mouth in these initial unplanned moments matters much more than any of the well thought out words I will think to say in the days following…so I try my best to speak from the heart and stay focused on the issue at hand instead of my past experience or perceptions. I’m not gonna lie, though- This particular issue is hard to stay objective about…impossible, maybe…so I decided not to.

Instead of fighting to stay removed I dove headfirst into my personal experience. I thought about how different my relationship with my family, the church and the world is these days compared to when I was coming out as a teenager and I thought about how it was that we got from there to here. In the years since coming out I have been able to change the hearts and minds of the people in my life. The once conservative views alive in my family are no longer anywhere to be found. We live in a profoundly free, new world together; a world full of love and celebration of our differences. It’s really quite beautiful. Had you told me this would be the case with my loved ones when I was 14 and miserable I would have laughed in your face at the impossibility of it all.

When I think about how this change in our lives came to be there are many variables. The common factor is me, however. In getting to know me, in seeing what it means to be a gay person through my life, my parents and these anti-gay people around them have changed their minds. It has taken years…but eventually is so much better than never. There are educational opportunities in front of my face all the time. Sometimes I am the teacher, but I am ALWAYS the student. When I heard Mars Hill Pastor Tim Smith speak in this video (click HERE to watch) I knew this was one of those times. I invited them to come take a tour of Q Center and chat and they took me up on the offer.

This afternoon MH Pastor Tim Smith arrived at Q Center with his colleague and we (along with Barb and Paul) spent nearly 2 hours together, chatting first about our similarities to find common ground and then about our differences and what that means for the local LGBT community here in Portland now that they have arrived. It was a very respectful, civil afternoon. We spoke about what all we do at Q Center, about youth suicide, bullying, queer families, the local political landscape and the state of the LGBT community here in Portland and worldwide. They spoke, we listened. We spoke, they listened. We had “ah-ha!” moments, they had “ah-ha!” moments. It was really that simple. No screaming. No fighting. Just talking. I believe we all left today’s meeting with a better understanding of one another’s perspective and with a resolve to take this dialogue to the next level.

In discussing what that would look like initially, we have decided to gather a dozen people – 6 from the LGBT community and 6 from the Mars Hill/Evangelical Christian community – to meet and dive deeper into these discussions over the course of a period of time yet to be determined. This will be an opportunity for the hard questions to be asked, answered, cried about, talked over, etc in a safe space, with the end goal being that both sides walk away with a better understanding of the other. There is so much fear on both sides of this particular coin…and we often are most afraid of the unknown. My hope is that we can replace the fear with knowledge, swap out the misinformation with education. I have seen this happen in my immediate family and believe wholeheartedly that it can happen in the larger human family as well. We are all just people, after all.

Today was a victory for courage, compassion and kindness; for being heard and for listening to. I’ll keep you all posted as this develops. I have high hopes that something really good comes out of this bridge we started building today.

In the end, love wins. Always. You’ll see.

xo,

Logan

It’s been a REALLY big couple of weeks since the release of “Live From Nowhere Near You” (the charity record I’m on with The Strokes, Pearl Jam, Spoon, Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, The Decemberists, The Dandy Warhols, Wilco and dozens of other killer bands). Not only is the record blowing up radio (and selling out everywhere in-stores) but the press has been all up in it since the beginning of July!

After being featured by Pitchfork Magazine, Under The Radar Magazine, and a TON of other awesome media outlets all praising the record, it was picked as #3 on this week’s Must-Have list in Entertainment Weekly! Pick up the current issue on stands everywhere now or click the front cover below to check out the electronic version! YEAH BUDDY!

To get your copy of “Live From Nowhere Near You” go to any record store anywhere or CLICK HERE.

David Byrne included me and my “Quickly As We Pass” video in his notorious “Pop Making Sense” column this week in Chicago’s Windy City Times newspaper! You can currently pick it up anywhere periodicals are distributed in Chicago or just keep reading below.

From Windy City Times, Chicago: (7/27/2011)

“Another video to keep an eye out for is Logan Lynn’s ‘Quickly As We Pass.’ Imagine forward-thinking Imogen Heap mentoring a DIY artist with the hipster sound stemming from Brooklyn. The end product would be ‘Quickly As We Pass‘. The track’s video is very cleverly done with stills looking like cutouts then being turned into 3-D objects, as they are filmed from different angles. Also, there is footage of neighborhoods in the Windy City with many of the spots being instantly recognizable. Not only is the video well crafted, but the song itself is very catchy. Lynn is based in Chicago and is openly gay. ‘Quickly As We Pass‘ can be found on the album ‘I Killed Tomorrow Yesterday‘.

Nice huh? I’m actually based in Portland but I love that Chicago wants to claim me! So cute!!! To read the full article, CLICK HERE.